cont. from

In secondary traumatization, the child, in some manner, relives his father's traumatic war experiences or becomes obsessed with the war-related issues which trouble and concern the veteran. The child may even manifest symptoms similar to the veteran's. The child may have nightmares about Vietnam, or combat, or worry a great deal about death and injury. Vet Center counselors report that, in some cases, children as young as three or four years old have learned to imitate their fathers and hide under their beds when an airplane or helicopter flies overhead. Whether or not these children actually experience fear or are simply imitating Daddy is not known.

In families of World War II veterans where there was secondary traumatization, R. Rosenheck also found that "for some of the veteran's offspring, their father was, by far, the most important person in their lives. It is as if they were constantly together, constantly embroiled in a shared emotional cauldron. For these children, life seems to have been a series of anticipation of, and reactions to, their father's moods, impulses, and obsessions."

In another study, Rosenheck cites the case of Alan, the ten-year-old son of a Vietnam combat vet who, although he did not have nightmares, had great difficulty sleeping because he "worried about being killed or kidnapped. His main fear was that he, his father, or both would be shot `like in the war.' In many of his (Alan's) fantasies, it was as if he was living in one of his father's flashbacks rather than in his own reality." In the Vet Center study, about 65% of the counselors polled observed symptoms similar to the veteran's in his children. This does not mean that 65% of the children of Vietnam veterans evidence symptoms similar to their father's, but rather that 65% of the counselors said that they had witnessed this phenomenon in some children of vets.

I have observed only one child evidencing secondary traumatization. Like the ten-year-old described by Rosenheck, Ben was obsessed with power and violence. He was constantly playing war games, reading war comics, and only wanted war toys for Christmas. It was impossible to have a conversation with Ben without his mentioning Vietnam and his father's various heroic feats. Despite his superior I.Q., he had trouble concentrating in school and was in frequent fights. His participation in sports was intense, and he admitted, a way to prove to his father that he was as strong and brave as any Vietnam veteran. Ben would also attack his sisters and the neighbors with plastic swords, hurling anti-Vietnamese epithets.

Children who suffer from secondary traumatization may or may not assume a "rescuer" role in relation to their fathers. The rescuer role may be assumed by another child in the family who takes it upon himself to help make the father happy. Ben did assume the rescuer role and, when he wasn't playing sports or war games, spent an inordinate amount of time with his father, who was not only his father, but his best, if not only, friend.

At the age of 14, however, Ben, due to the natural changes of adolescence, began to want to separate from his father. Also, he became interested in girls, most of whom frowned on his interest in violence. Yet Ben felt guilty about experiencing the normal adolescent process of separating and becoming an individual, as if in growing up he was abandoning his father.

At the same time, Ben's father was experiencing his son's growing up -- and away -- as yet another loss, rekindling feelings of betrayal and abandonment associated with his war experience. In an effort to hold on to his son (who had been not only a son, but an admiring companion), Ben's father began to impose unnecessary restrictions on Ben's activities and to criticize Ben for minor imperfections, leading to further conflict between father and son, and more guilt on Ben's part.

Ben's father needed counseling to see that punishments and remarks were not bringing his son closer to him, but driving him farther away. Ben's father needed to be told repeatedly by his therapist, as well as by his friends who were parents, that losing children in their own lives is a normal part of parenthood, not a personal rejection.

Yet it still felt like a rejection to Ben's father and, for a while, he considered emotionally divorcing himself from his son and not interacting with him at all. "You don't have to disappear from your son's life. You only have to recede gradually," his therapist advised him.

"Your son still needs you and will continue to need you for the rest of your life. You are no longer in the forefront of his life as you were when he was younger, but this doesn't mean he doesn't love you. You need to learn to let go a little bit at a time."

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Reviewed: 04/2006